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ARLINGTON, Texas – Marcus Mariota’s season ended without the honor that mattered to him most.

Going into Monday night’s game against Ohio State, Oregon’s quarterback said he would trade the Heisman Trophy he won this season for a national championship because the team honor was more important to him than an individual award.

But the fourth-seeded Buckeyes overpowered the Ducks for a 42-20 victory in the first College Football Playoff championship.

It may have been Mariota’s final game at Oregon. He has until Thursday to decide whether he will skip his senior season and declare for the NFL draft. Mariota, who already has completed his degree, is expected to be a top pick.

Did the devastating loss change his mind about coming back?

“I’m sure it will weigh in a little bit, but there’s a lot of other things that have to play into that decision,” he said. “There’s starting grad school, coming back for another year to improve, there’s a lot of other things that could bring me back. It’s just not specifically this loss.”

Despite the loss, the soft-spoken team leader had a stellar season.

In addition to the Heisman, Mariota was named AP player of the year and the Pac-12’s offensive player of the year. He also won the Maxwell Award and Walter Camp player of the year, along with the Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, which go to the nation’s top quarterback.

He set conference records for most touchdowns in a single season with 58. He had 42 via pass, 15 on the run and a touchdown catch. He also set the conference mark for career touchdowns with 134. He has thrown at least one touchdown pass in all 41 games he has started in his career, the second-longest streak in NCAA history behind Marshall’s Rakeem Cato (46). And he’s one of four quarterbacks in FBS history to pass for more than 10,000 yards and run for more than 2,000 in his career.

Not that any of that mattered much to Mariota on this night.

“My main focus was to be a great teammate. That’s all I hoped to accomplish,” he said. “I don’t care about legacies.”

All season his bold moves on the field belied his shy demeanor off it. Against Wyoming, he flipped into the end zone for a touchdown, and against Arizona he caught a touchdown pass from running back Royce Freeman.

“The impact he’s had on the field is extremely significant,” Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said. “Off the field, probably even bigger.”

But he faced challenges against Ohio State.

Oregon’s receiver corps was hit earlier in the week when redshirt freshman Darren Carrington was declared ineligible for the game because of a failed NCAA drug test. Carrington did not travel to Texas for the biggest game of the season. The team already had lost freshman receiver Devon Allen, who also runs on Oregon’s track team, on the opening kickoff of the Ducks’ 59-20 victory over Florida State in the Rose Bowl.

Junior tight end Pharaoh Brown had six touchdown passes for the Ducks this season before he suffered a season-ending knee injury against Utah. And before the season started, junior receiver Bralon Addison tore a ligament in his left knee.

That left Oregon, which regularly uses three- and four-receiver formations, with just Dwayne Stanford, Keanon Lowe, Charles Nelson and converted running back Byron Marshall.

While Mariota found Lowe on Oregon’s opening drive with a 7-yard touchdown pass, both Nelson and Stanford dropped third-down passes in the first half and the Ducks trailed 21-10.

Mariota seemed to find more of a groove with his receivers as the game wore on, hitting Marshall with a 70-yard scoring pass to close the gap to 21-17 in the third quarter. Oregon got closer with Aiden Schneider’s 23-yard field goal.

Ezekiel Elliott answered the threat with a pair of rushing touchdown to put Ohio State up 35-20 and Oregon couldn’t catch up.